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Twilight (episode)
:For the DS9 novel, see ''Twilight (novel).'' The effect of a Delphic Expanse anomaly leaves Archer unable to form any new long-term memories. Twelve years later, he wakes up one morning and is stunned to learn the outcome of the Human-Xindi conflict, including the loss of Earth, and the near-annihilation of the Human race. Summary Teaser Jonathan Archer wakes in his quarters in the midst of battle. He rushes to the bridge, demanding to know what's happening. T'Pol, dressed in a Starfleet uniform, orders security to take him back to his quarters. Hoshi interrupts both of them, and everyone stares at the viewscreen as the Xindi weapon emerges from a subspace vortex and fires on Earth. The weapon's powerful energy beam boils the oceans, and the surface begins to splinter. As the bridge crew look on in horror, the molten Earth breaks apart and finally explodes. Act One Archer wakes in a small house where he finds T'Pol. The last thing he recalls was saving T'Pol from a spatial anomaly on board the . T'Pol reveals that twelve years have passed since then. She explains that the anomaly infected Archer's hippocampus with interspatial parasites that have left him with anterior grade amnesia. Each day, Archer wakes up with no memory of anything that had occurred since the accident. Doctor Phlox had long searched for a cure, but nothing had worked. As a result of his profound disability, Archer was removed from command and replaced by T'Pol, who accepted a field commission as a captain in Starfleet. After the change in command, Enterprise was unable to find the Xindi weapon. When Enterprise drew close to the weapon in 2154, it came under attack by Xindi-Reptilians. Many crewmembers, including Travis Mayweather, died in the assault. The ship also suffered severe damage limiting it to warp 1.7, mainly due to a ramming maneuver T'Pol made to defeat the Reptilians. By the time Enterprise reached the Azati Prime system, the weapon had already been launched. After destroying Earth, the Xindi continued searching the galaxy, determined to hunt down and kill all humans. Almost all of humanity was ruthlessly wiped out. Archer goes out of the house crying after he hears the bad news. Act Two T'Pol explains to Archer that Enterprise, Intrepid, and another two Starfleet starships led a convoy of around 6,000 surviving Humans to Ceti Alpha V. On this remote world, a secret, desolate refugee camp was built to house the remnants of Human society. Enterprise, under the command of Charles Tucker, was stationed in orbit with the remaining Starfleet vessels. Archer retired to the civilian community on the surface. T'Pol, refusing an offer to return to service with the Vulcans, chose to remain at the refugee camp to care for Archer. For over nine years, this last outpost of humanity had survived by remaining hidden from the Xindi. Once T'Pol explained everything, she goes on to say, "At this time you often ask if you are a victim of an elaborate deception." Archer admits that thought did cross his mind. T'Pol makes certain Archer believes her by informing him about Margaret Mullin, a girl he once asked to marry him. Archer asks how T'Pol could know so intimate a detail, and she explains that their relationship has "evolved." Shortly after T'Pol explains all this, Phlox arrives from Denobula, ready to try out a revolutionary new treatment for Archer's condition. Many of Phlox's colleagues in the medical community were convinced that nothing short of a subspace implosion would destroy the parasites (a treatment which, of course, would also kill the patient). Phlox persevered and developed an alternative but energy-intensive treatment which would target and destroy the parasites without any harm to Archer. With T'Pol, they return to Enterprise, where the warp core will provide the energy necessary for the treatment. Act Three Archer receives a hero's welcome aboard his old ship. After the first phase of treatment, Phlox and T'Pol examine records of Archer's brain scans from twelve years ago and realize that the parasites they have eliminated in the present have apparently disappeared from the past as well. If Phlox were to successfully complete the treatment and eliminate all the parasites, then it would be as if the parasites had never existed. This would effectively change history, and Archer would never have suffered from memory loss. Perhaps with Archer in command, Enterprise would have stopped the Xindi weapon, Earth would not have been destroyed, and humanity would not have been nearly wiped out. Unfortunately, Archer's treatment is cut short when Enterprise detects Yerdrin Lek, a Yridian spy, near Ceti Alpha. Lek tips Tucker off to the fact that the Xindi have found the last outpost and are on their way to finally annihilate the last of the surviving Humans. With Enterprise s power needed for battle, T'Pol and Phlox cannot complete Archer's treatment. Hoshi reports to Captain Tucker that six Xindi ships are entering the system. Act Four The battle begins. At first Enterprise and the other Earth vessels manage to ambush and disable two enemy ships, but ultimately humanity's last stand does not go well - the Intrepid loses its port nacelle and is forced to withdraw, and Enterprise's bridge is blown off. As Xindi-Reptilian soldiers board the now-adrift starship, Archer recalls that Phlox said a subspace implosion would destroy the parasites. Desperate and with nothing to lose, Archer, T'Pol, and Phlox feverishly work at the warp core to trigger an implosion. With Xindi soldiers firing around them, Phlox and T'Pol are killed. Archer is also shot, but with his last breath, he manages to push the final lever and initiates the subspace implosion, destroying the parasites in his brain (and Enterprise with it). In 2153 of the new timeline, Archer wakes up in sickbay after saving T'Pol from the spatial anomaly. Although Archer suffered a concussion, Phlox expects a full recovery. Memorable Quotes "In the corridor, when the anomaly hit, I urged you to leave me behind - if you had, it's likely I'' d be the one suffering from this...condition." "''Fortunately, I don't take orders from you." "Captain...I never expressed my gratitude for what you did." "I suppose there's not much point in thanking me...a few hours from now, I won't remember." : - T'Pol and an infected Archer "We've taken nine prisoners, but the brig was only designed for two. I'm not sure what to do with the others." "Blow 'em out the airlock!" "Put them in crew quarters under heavy guard." : - Reed, Tucker, and T'Pol discussing what to do with their Xindi prisoners "For now, the best I can give you is warp 1.7!" "We're not going to get very far at that speed." : - Tucker and Reed, as Reed responds to the status of the engines "This planet is barely Minshara-class. Maybe we should've picked one with a little more blue and green on it." : - Tucker, commenting on the desolate state of the planet below "After the settlement was established, it became clear that I was never going to find a treatment for your condition if I remained here - so I returned home, and consulted with some of the finest neurosurgeons and quantum theorists on Denobula. My colleagues believed there was no way to destroy these parasites, short of vaporizing you in a subspace implosion. They assured me, the technology to do what was required did not exist...and, uh, they were correct. It took almost a decade to develop, but now I'm ready to put it to the test. The procedure requires tremendous amounts of energy - levels that can only be produced in the reactor of a warp-powered starship." "We're going to Enterprise." : - Phlox and T'Pol, explaining their plans to Archer "Did everyone get their own ship while I was gone?" : - Jonathan Archer, after learning that Tucker and Reed, as well as T'Pol, had been promoted to captain in his absence. "It couldn't have been easy for you, telling me the same story over and over again for twelve years." "I don't always tell it in detail." "I hope I've told you this before, but... I'm very grateful for everything you've done for me." : - Archer and T'Pol, discussing her role as his caretaker "Your engineers won't let us continue the captain's treatment!" "Those were my orders - look, I'd do anything to help the captain, but we've got bigger problems at the moment." "This may be the only solution to your problems, captain." "Destroying these parasites is most likely the key to saving Humanity - and Earth." : - Phlox, Tucker, and T'Pol, after the effects of the treatment has been discovered "This image was taken a few minutes ago. You can see the region where I eradicated the first cluster of parasites? It's gone in this image as well...This scan was taken over twelve years ago. The cluster has disappeared from all the scans I've taken over the last twelve years - it's as though it never existed at all." "By destroying the organisms in the present, we appeared to have neutralized them in the past." "We know they're from another spatial domain. Apparently they also exist outside of time - if we can eliminate all of the parasites, it's possible the captain's infection will never have occurred!" : - Phlox and T'Pol, explaining their fateful discovery to Captain Tucker "If the Xindi are on the way, there's very little we can do to stop them." "Well we can't just run up the white flag." : - T'Pol and Tucker, after he denies her request "Our shields are holding. Nice to know they work in combat." "Remind me to send a thank you note to General Shran." : - Reed and Tucker, discussing Enterprise s deflector shields, previously untested in battle (Horrified) "The bridge is gone..." (Realizing there's no one to stop her from treating Archer) "T'Pol to Phlox... meet us in engineering. We're going to finish the procedure." "We don't have time to worry about parasites right now." "That's not necessarily true." : - Archer and T'Pol "I'm sorry , Captain - the chamber's been damaged." (Archer initially looks up in horror, before remembering that there was another way)"Didn't you say we could destroy the parasites with a subspace implosion?" "Yes, but that would..." "Can we create one?" "We would have to overload three plasma injectors - that would send a feedback pulse through the reactor." "You'll destroy the ship!" "At this point, it won't make much of a difference!" : - Phlox, Archer and T'Pol "You two, get to a shuttlepod. They're only after Humans - if this doesn't work out, you'll still have a chance...(the Vulcan and Denobulan exchange a quick glance, and T'Pol walks up to the warp core to render assistance)...That's an order!" "With all due respect, you were relieved of command." : - Archer, and T'Pol "You could've been seriously injured - I told you to leave me behind." "Fortunately, I don't take orders from you." : - T'Pol and an uninfected Archer, in the restored timeline "You know... you'd make a wonderful nurse." : - Archer to T'Pol, after she got him an extra pillow Background Information Story and script *According to Mike Sussman, this story was originally pitched as an episode for Star Trek: Voyager, with Kathryn Janeway as the afflicted captain, and Chakotay as her caretaker. Sussman commented, "It was my attempt at writing a love story for those two, but I couldn't sell the Voyager producers on the idea. It turned out to work better as an Archer and T'Pol story anyway, with the background of the Xindi war upping the stakes." *Responding to criticisms of the use of the "reset button" at the end of the episode, Sussman commented, "I wanted Archer and/or T'Pol to take away something from that experience, too – but to me it would have been a cheat to do that. Archer doesn't get 'thrown back in time' when the parasites are destroyed; we as the writers simply decided to cut back to that point of departure where his life had changed. So why would he have remembered future events from an alternate reality that (a) are in an alternate reality and (b) haven't happened yet? That show was set 20 years in the future; say in the real Star Trek universe, Archer is now the first president of the Federation and he's married to T'Pol – we could have just cut back to that and said,'OK, it's 20 years later, ''still;' we haven't changed the time, but we're back in the proper timeline. Well, that would have been bizarre." http://larrynemecek.com/articles/mike-sussman-profile.pdf *Ceti Alpha V was the planet on which Captain James T. Kirk of the exiled Khan Noonien Singh, as seen in . The choice of this planet as the location of the last human colony was something of a "cruel joke" on the part of Sussman. Even if the human survivors managed to escape detection by the Xindi, their planet will be made uninhabitable in a little over a hundred years when Ceti Alpha VI explodes, as explained in . (''Information provided by Mike Sussman) *An Earth convoy destroyed in the Mutara system is mentioned by Soval, a reference to the site of a battle between Kirk and Khan, also depicted in . *''Enterprise'' shepherding a "rag-tag fugitive fleet" to a new home after the destruction of Earth was an homage by writer Mike Sussman to . Sussman had read a bootlegged copy of the pilot script for the re-imagined series prior to writing "Twilight". (Information provided by Mike Sussman) *The final draft script for "Twilight" dated 11/06/2003 gave the Yridian spy the name of "Yerdrin Lek". Earlier drafts called him "Yedrin Koss", but this was changed because there were already two Star Trek characters with similar names: Dax host Yedrin Dax and T'Pol's husband Koss. Promotional materials for the episode used the earlier, incorrect name, which became widely disseminated. It is worth noting the character's name is never mentioned in the episode as aired. Production * Computer monitors aboard the alternate-timeline Enterprise sported a red, yellow and green color scheme (rather than red, yellow and blue), similar to the computer panels used during the 23rd century as seen in The Original Series. * The battle scene establishes that Enterprise had received tactical advancements from Shran – who would, in the prime universe, play an invaluable role in preventing the events of this episode from ever taking place. * A scene with an aged Porthos (twelve years older) was shot for the future sequences, but didn't make it into the final show. In the "present" scenes, a scene was cut at movie night where Archer told T'Pol about Porthos being stressed - and that he might benefit from neuropressure. * Archer's grey hair is actually a trimmed version of one of the early test wigs for Soval. The actors embraced this, theorizing that, after many years of living together on the planet, T'Pol was now cutting Archer's hair, hence the slightly Vulcan style. (Information provided by Mike Sussman) * The effect shot of the Intrepid losing its nacelle was not originally scripted. Originally, a line of dialog was meant to deliver this information, however, the effect was deemed to carry a greater impact to the audience, and replaced the original dialog. * The object Archer uses to fatally stab a Reptilian soldier is a miniature replica of the Zefram Cochrane statue described by Geordi La Forge in . Reception * This episode was chosen as the #1 fan favorite in an on-line poll conducted by UPN prior to the final six episodes of the series airing. It was re-broadcast on 8 April 2005 in that context. * The book Star Trek 101, by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block, lists this episode as one of the "Ten Essential Episodes" from Star Trek: Enterprise. DVD releases * As part of the ENT Season 3 DVD * As part of the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Alternate Realities Links and references Main cast * Scott Bakula as Jonathan Archer * John Billingsley as Phlox * Jolene Blalock as T'Pol * Dominic Keating as Malcolm Reed * Anthony Montgomery as Travis Mayweather * Linda Park as Hoshi Sato * Connor Trinneer as Charles "Trip" Tucker III Guest stars *Gary Graham as Vulcan Ambassador Soval *Brett Rickaby as Yerdrin Lek Co-star * Richard Anthony Crenna as a guard Uncredited co-stars *Joey Anaya as a Xindi *Jason Collins as Corporal R. Ryan *Mark Correy as Alex *Duncan K. Fraser as Ensign Walsh *Hilde Garcia as Crewman Rossi *John Jurgens as a Xindi-Reptilian soldier *Ricky Lomax as Private W. Woods *Marti Matulis as a Xindi-Reptilian soldier *Gil Rosales (stunt actor) *Justin Sundquist (stunt actor) *Ator Tamras as a science division ensign *Chris Torres as Sergeant B. Moreno *Unknown actors as Xindi-Reptilian soldiers Stunt double *Keith Campbell as stunt double for Scott Bakula References Air Group Ten; Alpha Centauri colony (Alpha Centauri); alternate timeline; anterograde amnesia; antimatter inducer; antiproton beam; boatswain's whistle; Ceti Alpha system; Ceti Alpha V; chromosphere; classroom; Command Council; concussion; Delphic Expanse; Denobula; Denobulan shuttle; distress call; duranium; Earth; feedback pulse; field commission; Starfleet flight school; Forrest, Maxwell; garbage scow; general; hippocampus; interspatial flux; interspatial parasite; Intrepid; ; Jupiter Station; Martian colonies (Mars); millicochrane; Minshara class; microcellular scan; Mullin, Margaret; Mutara sector; Mutara system; neurosurgeon; phase cannon; plasma injector; plasma torch; Porthos; quantum theory; radiolytic signature; Ramirez, Carlos; Rosemary's Baby; Rigelian flame gem; sentry probe; shields; Shran; subspace buoy; subspace implosion; transporter; turbolift; Vega colony; Vulcan; Vulcan (planet); Vulcan database; Vulcan High Command; warp coil; white flag; Westgate Avenue; Xindi-Insectoid starship; Xindi-Reptilian warship; Yridians; Yridian shuttle (22nd century); Zefram Cochrane's statue External link * |next= }} cs:Twilight de:Dämmerung es:Twilight fr:Twilight (épisode) ja:ENT:留められない記憶 nl:Twilight Category:ENT episodes